“Having funding to support PhD students and provide them with the resources they need to complete their research is very fulfilling and will go a long way to enhance the long-term success of our goal: to provide Kenyan farmers with cereal varieties that will improve their yields and make their livelihood more secure and sustainable.” – Samuel Gudu, Professor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Planning & Development) at Moi University, and now Principal, Rongo University College: a Constituent College of Moi University, Kenya.

Growing up, and getting dirtyLearner, teacher and leader. Sam Gudu has been all these, but this doesn’t mean he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty.

Growing up in a small fishing village on the banks of Lake Victoria, in Western Kenya, Sam was always helping his parents to fish and garden, or his grandparents to muster cattle.

“I remember spending long hours before and after school either on the lake or in the field helping to catch, harvest and produce enough food to eat and support our family,” reminisces Sam.

He attributes this “hard and honest” work to why he still enjoys being in the field.

“Even though I now spend most of my days doing administration work, I’m always trying to get out into the field to get my hands dirty and see how our research is helping to make the lives of Kenyan farmers a lot more profitable and sustainable,” he says.

Doing what he likes to do best: Sam in a maize field in Kenya.

I was… captivated by the study of genetics as it focused on what controlled life.”

Taking control: bonded to genetics, at home and awaySam says his love for the land transferred to an interest and then passion in the classroom during high school. “I became very interested in Biology as I wanted to know how nature worked,” says Sam. “I was particularly captivated by the study of genetics as it focused on what controlled life.”

This interest grew during his undergraduate years at the University of Nairobi where he completed a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and a Master’s of Science in Agriculture, focusing on genetics and plant breeding.

“I fondly remember a lecturer during my master’s degree studies who would continually give us challenges to test in the field and in the lab. If you had a viable idea he supported you to design an experiment to test your theory. I like to use the same method in teaching my students. I discuss quite a lot with my students and I encourage them to disagree if they use scientific process.”

Driven by an ever-growing passion and enthusiasm, Sam secured a scholarship to travel to Canada to undertake a PhD in Plant Genetics and Biotechnology at the University of Guelph.

[There has been an] influx of young Kenyans who are choosing degrees in science. The Kenyan Government has recently increased its funding for science and research…”

Nurturing the next breed of geneticistsAfter graduating from Guelph in 1993, Sam returned to Kenya to lecture at Moi University where he initiated and helped expand teaching and research in the disciplines of Genetic Engineering, Biotechnology and Molecular Biology.

In the past two decades, he has recruited young talented graduates in genetics and helped acquire advanced laboratory equipment that has enabled practical teaching and research in molecular biology.

“I wouldn’t be where I am now were it not for all the assistance I received from my teachers, lecturers and supervisors; notably my PhD supervisor – Prof Ken Kasha of the University of Guelph. So I’ve always tried my best to give the same assistance to my students. It’s been hard work but very rewarding, especially when you see your students graduate to become peers and colleagues.”(Meet some of Sam’s students)

Sam is particularly buoyed by the influx of young Kenyans who are choosing degrees in science.

“The Kenyan Government has recently increased its funding for science and research to two percent of GDP,” explains Sam. “This has not only helped us compete in the world of research but has helped raise the profile of science as a career.”

Knowing which genes are responsible for aluminium tolerance will allow us to more precisely select for aluminium tolerance in our breeding programmes, reducing the time it takes for us to breed varieties that will have improved yields in acidic soils without the use of costly inputs such as lime or fertiliser.” (See the work that Sam does in this area with other partners outside Kenya)

So far we have produced 10 inbred lines that are outstanding for phosphorus efficiency, and two that were outstanding for aluminium toxicity. We are now testing unique verities developed for acid soils of Kenya.”

Slashing costs, increasing yields and resilience: genes to the rescueCurrently, Sam and his team of young researchers at Moi University are working with several other research facilities around the world (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, EMBRAPA; Cornell University, USA; the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI); Japan’s International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, JIRCAS; and the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, KARI–Kitale) to develop high-yielding maize varieties adapted to acid soils in East Africa, using molecular and conventional breeding approaches.

Can you spot Sam? It’s a dual life. Here, he sheds his field clothes in this 2011 suit-and-tie moment with Moi University and other colleagues involved in the projects he leads. Left to right: P Kisinyo, J Agalo, V Mugalavai, B Were, D Ligeyo, S Gudu, R Okalebo and A Onkware.

Acid soils cover almost 13 per cent of arable land in Kenya, and most of the maize-growing areas in Kenya. In most of these areas, maize yields are reduced by almost 60 per cent. Aluminium toxicity is partly responsible for the low and declining yields.

“We found that most local maize varieties and landraces grown in acid soils are sensitive to aluminium toxicity. The aluminium reduces root growth and as such the plant cannot efficiently tap into native soil phosphorus, or even added phosphorus fertiliser. However, there are some varieties of maize that are suited to the conditions even if you don’t use lime to improve the soil’s pH. So far we have produced 10 inbred lines that are outstanding for phosphorus efficiency, and two that were outstanding for aluminium toxicity. We are now testing unique varieties developed for acid soils of Kenya.”

Sam (left) addressing a mixed group of farmers and researchers at Sega, Western Kenya, in June 2009.

In a related project, Sam is working with the same partners to understand the molecular and genetic basis for aluminium tolerance.

“Knowing which genes are responsible for aluminium tolerance will allow us to more precisely select for aluminium tolerance in our breeding programmes, reducing the time it takes for us to breed varieties that will have improved yields in acidic soils without the use of costly inputs such as lime or fertiliser.”

… my greatest achievements thus far have been those which have benefited farmers and my students.”

Summing up successFor Sam, the greatest two successes in his career have not been personal.

“If I’m honest, I have to say my greatest achievements thus far have been those which have benefited farmers and my students. Having funding to support PhD students and provide them with the resources they need to complete their research is very fulfilling and will go a long way to enhance the long-term success of our goal: to provide Kenyan farmers with cereal varieties that will improve their yields and make their livelihoods more secure and sustainable.”

With a dozen aluminium-tolerant and phosphorus-efficient breeding lines under their belt already, and two lines submitted for National Variety Trials (a pre-requisite step to registration and release to farmers), Sam and his team seem well on their way towards their goal, and we wish them well in their quest and labour.

After getting a good grounding on the realities of groundnut research from Vincent, our next stop is East Africa, Tanzania, where we meet Omari Mponda (pictured). Omari is a Principal Agricultural Officer and plant breeder at Tanzania’s Agricultural Research Institute (ARI), Naliendele, and country groundnut research leader for the Tropical Legumes I (TLI) project, implemented through our Legumes Research Initiative. Groundnut production in Tanzania is hampered by drought in the central region and by rosette and other foliar diseases in all regions. But all is not bleak, and there is a ray of hope: “We’ve been able to identify good groundnut-breeding material for Tanzania for both drought tolerance as well as disease resistance,” says Omari. Omari’s team are also now carrying their own crosses, and happy about it. Read on to find out why they are not labouring under the weight of the crosses they carry…

…we have already released five varieties…TLI’s major investment in Tanzania’s groundnut breeding has been the irrigation system… Frankly, we were not used to being so well-equipped!”

Q: How did you go about identifying appropriate groundnut-breeding material for Tanzania?A: We received 300 reference-set lines from ICRISAT [International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics], which we then genotyped over three years [2008– 2010] for both drought tolerance and disease resistance. After we identified the best varieties, these were advanced to TLII [TLI’s sister project] for participatory variety selection with farmers in 2011–2012, followed by seed multiplication. From our work with ICRISAT, we have already released five varieties.

Harvesting the groundnut reference-set collection at Naliendele. A ‘reference set’ is a sub-sample of existing germplasm collections that facilitates and enables access to existing crop diversity for desired traits, such as drought tolerance or resistance to disease or pests.

ARI–Naliendele has also benefitted from both human and infrastructure capacity building. Our scientists and technicians were trained in drought phenotyping at ICRISAT Headquarters in India. One of our research assistants, Mashamba Philipo, benefitted from six-month training, following which he advanced to an MSc specialising in drought phenotpying using molecular breeding. In his work, he is now using drought germplasm received from ICRISAT. In terms of laboratory and field infrastructure, the station got irrigation equipment to optimise drought-phenotyping trials. Precision phenotyping and accurate phenotypic data are indispensable for effective molecular breeding. To facilitate this, ARI–Naliendele benefitted from computers, measuring scales, laboratory ware and a portable weather station, all in a bid to assure good information on phenotyping. But by far, TLI’s major investment in Tanzania’s groundnut breeding has been the irrigation system which is about to be completed. This will be very useful as we enter TLIII for drought phenotyping.

For us, this is a big achievement to be able to do national crosses. Previously, we relied on ICRISAT…we are advancing to a functional breeding programme in Tanzania… gains made are not only sustainable, but also give us independence and autonomy to operate..We developing-country scientists are used to applied research and conventional breeding, but we now see the value and the need for adjusting ourselves to understand the use of molecular markers in groundnut breeding.”

Flashback to 2010: Omari (right), with Hannibal Muhtar (left), who was contracted by GCP to implement infrastructure improvement for ARI Naliendele, and other institutes. See http://bit.ly/1hriGRp

Q: What difference has participating in TLI made?A: Frankly, we were not used to being so well-equipped, neither with dealing with such a large volume as 300 lines! But we filtered down and selected the well-performing lines which had the desired traits, and we built on these good lines. The equipment purchased through the project not only helped us with the actual phenotyping and being able to accurately confirm selected lines, but also made it possible for us to conduct off-season trials.

We’re learning hybridisation skills so that we can use TLI donors to improve local varieties, and our technicians have been specifically trained in this area. For us, this is a big achievement to be able to do national crosses. Previously, we relied on ICRISAT doing the crosses for us, but we can now do our own crosses. The difference this makes is that we are advancing to a functional breeding programme in Tanzania, meaning the gains made are not only sustainable, but also give us independence and autonomy to operate. Consequently, we are coming up with other segregating material from what we’ve already obtained, depending on the trait of interest we are after.

Another big benefit is directly interacting with world-class scientists in the international arena through the GCP community and connections – top-rated experts not just from ICRISAT, but also from IITA, CIAT, EMBRAPA [Brazil], and China’s DNA Research Institute. We have learnt a lot from them, especially during our annual review meetings. We developing-country scientists are used to applied research and conventional breeding, but we now see the value and the need for adjusting ourselves to understand the use of molecular markers in groundnut breeding. We now look forward to TLIII where we expect to make impact by practically applying our knowledge to groundnut production in Tanzania.

Interesting! And this gets us squarely back to capacity building. What are your goals or aspirations in this area?A: Let us not forget that TLI is implemented by the national programmes. In Africa, capacity building is critical, and people want to be trained. I would love to see fulltime scientists advance to PhD level in these areas which are a new way of doing business for us. I would love for us to have the capacity to adapt to our own environment for QTLs [quantitative trait loci], QTL mapping, and marker-assisted selection. Such capacity at national level would be very welcome. We also hope to link with advanced labs such as BecA [Biosciences eastern and southern Africa] for TLI activities, and to go beyond service provision with them so that our scientists can go to these labs and learn.

There should also be exchange visits between scientists for learning and sharing, to get up to date on the latest methods and technologies out there. For GCP’s Integrated Breeding Platform [IBP], this would help IBP developers to design reality-based tools, and also to benefit from user input in refining the tools.

Like its legume relatives, cowpeas belong to a cluster of crops that are still referred to in some spheres of the crop-breeding world as ‘orphan crops’. This, because they have largely been bypassed by the unprecedented advances that have propelled ‘bigger’ crops into the world of molecular breeding, endowed as they are with the genomic resources necessary. But as we shall hear from Phil Roberts (pictured), of the University of California–Riverside, USA, and also the cowpea research leader for the Tropical Legumes I Project (TLI), despite the prefix in the name, this ‘little kid’ in the ‘breeding block’ called cowpeas is uncowed and unbowed, confidently striding into the world of modern crop breeding, right alongside the ‘big boys’! What more on this new kid on the block of modern molecular breeding? Phil’s at hand to fill us in…

Vigna the VIP that shrinks with the violetsBut is no shrinking violet, by any means, as we shall see. Also known as niébé in francophone Africa, and in USA as black-eyed peas (no relation to the musical group, however, hence no capitals!), this drought-tolerant ancient crop (Vigna unguiculata [L] Walp) originated in West Africa. It is highly efficient in fixing nitrogen in the unforgiving and dry sandy soils of the drier tropics. And that is not all. This modest VIP is not addicted to the limelight and is in fact outright lowly and ultra-social: like their fetching African counterpart in the flower family, the African violet, cowpeas will contentedly thrive under the canopy of others, blooming in the shade and growing alongside various cereal and root crops, without going suicidal for lack of limelight and being in the crowd. With such an easy-going personality, added to their adaptability, cowpeas have sprinted ahead to become the most important grain legume in sub-Saharan Africa for both subsistence and cash. But – as always – there are two sides to every story, and sadly, not all about cowpeas is stellar…

Improved varieties are urgently needed to narrow the gap between actual and potential yields… modern breeding techniques… can play a vital role”

A cowpea experimental plot at IITA.

What could be, and what molecular breeding has to do with itYields are low, only reaching a mere 10 to 30 percent of their potential, primarily because of insect- and disease-attack, sometimes further compounded by chronic drought in the desiccated drylands cowpeas generally call home. “Improved varieties are urgently needed to narrow the gap between actual and potential yields,” says Phil. The cowpea project he leads in TLI is implemented through GCP’s Legume Research Initiative. Phil adds, “Such varieties are particularly valuable on small farms, where costly agricultural inputs are not an option. Modern breeding techniques, resulting from the genomics revolution, can play a vital role in improving cowpea materials.”

He and his research team are therefore developing genomic resources that country-based breeding programmes can use. Target-country partners are Institut de l’Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles (INERA) in Burkina Faso; Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique; and Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles (ISRA) in Senegal. Other partners are the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) headquartered in Nigeria and USA’s Feed the Future Innovation Labs for Collaborative Research on Grain Legumes and for Climate Resilient Cowpeas.

It’s a lot easier and quicker, and certainly less hit-or-miss than traditional methods!… By eliminating some phenotyping steps and identifying plants carrying positive-trait alleles for use in crossing, they will also shorten the time needed to breed better-adapted cowpea varieties preferred by farmers and markets.”

Cowpea seller at Bodija Market, Ibadan, Nigeria.

On target, and multiplying the score[First, a rapid lesson on plant-genetics jargon so we can continue our story uninterrupted: ‘QTLs’ stands for quantitative trait loci, a technical term in quantitative genetics to describe the locations where genetic variation is associated with variation in a quantitative trait. QTL analysis estimates how many genes control a particular trait. ‘Allele’ means an alternative form of a the same gene. Continuing with the story…]

Culinary curves and curls: the curved shape means that these cowpea pods are mature and ripe for harvesting.

“We first verified 30 cowpea lines as sources of drought tolerance and pest resistance,” Phil recalls. “Using molecular markers, we can identify the genomic regions of the QTLs that are responsible for the desired target phenotype, and stack those QTLs to improve germplasm resistance to drought or pests. It’s a lot easier and quicker, and certainly less hit-or-miss than traditional methods! However, standing alone, QTLs are not the silver bullet in plant breeding. What happens is that QTL information complements visual selection. Moreover, QTL discovery must be based on accurate phenotyping information, which is the starting point, providing pointers on where to look within the cowpea genome. Molecular breeding can improve varieties for several traits in tandem,” suggests Phil. “Hence, farmers can expect a more rapid delivery of cowpea varieties that are not only higher-yielding, but also resistant to several stresses at once.”

And what are Phil and team doing to contribute to making this happen?

“The genomic resources from Phase I – especially genotyping platforms and QTL knowledge – are being used in Phase II of the TLI Project to establish breeding paradigms, using molecular breeding approaches,” Phil reveals. He adds that these approaches include marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS) and marker assisted back-crossing (MABC). “These paradigms were tested in the cowpea target countries in Africa,” Phil continues. “By eliminating some phenotyping steps and identifying plants carrying positive-trait alleles for use in crossing, they will also shorten the time needed to breed better-adapted cowpea varieties preferred by farmers and markets.”

… best-yielding lines will be released as improved varieties… others will be used…as elite parents…”

Future workWhat of the future? Phil fills us in: “The advanced breeding lines developed in TLI Phase II are now entering multi-location performance testing in the target African countries. It is expected that best-yielding lines will be released as improved varieties, while others will be used in the breeding programmes as elite parents for generating new breeding lines for cowpeas.”

Clearly then, the job is not yet done, as the ultimate goal is to deliver better cowpeas to farmers. But while this goal is yet to be attained and – realistically – can only be some more years down the road, it is also equally clear that Phil and his team have already chalked up remarkable achievements in the quest to improve cowpeas. They hope to continue pressing onwards and upwards in the proposed Tropical Legumes III Project, the anticipated successor to TLI and its twin project TLII – Tropical Legumes II.

Today, we travel to yet another sun-kissed spot, leaving California behind but keeping it legumes. We land in Africa for some ground truths on groundnuts with Vincent Vadez (pictured), groundnut research leader for the Tropical Legumes I (TLI) Project. Vincent fills us in on facts and figures on groundnuts and Africa – a tale of ups and downs, triumphs and trials, but also of ‘family’ alliances not feuds, and of problems, yes, but also their present or potential solutions. On to the story then! Read on to find out why groundnuts are…

….A very mixed bag in AfricaGroundnuts (Arachis hypogaea L), also called peanuts, are a significant subsistence and food crop in sub-Saharan Africa. There, groundnuts are grown in practically every country, with the continent accounting for roughly a quarter of the world’s production. Despite this rosy African statistic, problems abound: for example, nearly half (40 percent) of the of the world’s total acreage for groundnuts is in Africa, which dramatically dims the 25 percent global production quota.

In Africa, groundnuts are typically cultivated in moderate rainfall areas across the continent, usually by women. (See editorial note* at the end of the story)

Clearly then, Africa’s yields are low, borne out by telling statistics which show African production at 950 kilos per hectare, in acute contrast to 1.8 tonnes per hectare in Asia.

…every year, yields worth about USD 500 million are lost”

What ails Africa’s production?The main constraints hampering higher yields and quality in Africa are intermittent drought due to erratic rainfall, as well as terminal drought during maturation. And that is not all, because foliar (leaf) diseases such as the late leaf spot (LLS) or groundnut rosette are also taking their toll. Economically speaking, every year, yields worth about USD 500 million are lost to drought, diseases and pests. Plus, the seeding rates for predominantly bushy groundnut types are low, and therefore insufficient to achieve optimal ground cover. Thus, genetic limitations meet and mingle with major agronomic shortcomings in the cultivation of groundnuts, making it…

…. A tough nut to crackGroundnuts are mostly cultivated by impoverished farmers living in the semi-arid tropics where rainfall is both low and erratic.

. Tough it may be for crop scientists, but clearly not too tough for these two youngsters shelling groundnuts at Mhperembe Market, Malawi.

“To help double the productivity of this crop over the next 10 years, we need to improve groundnuts’ ability to resist drought and diseases without farmers needing to purchase costly agricultural inputs,” says Vincent.

But the crop’s genetic structure is complex, plus, for resistance to these stresses, its genetic diversity is narrow. “Groundnuts are therefore difficult and slow to breed using conventional methods,” says Vincent. And yet, as we shall see later, groundnuts are distinctly disadvantaged when it comes to molecular breeding. But first, the good news!

…wild relatives have genes for resisting the stresses… molecular markers can play a critical role”

Why blood is thicker than water, and family black sheep are valuedKith and kin are key in groundnut science. Vincent points out that groundnuts have several wild relatives that carry the necessary genes for resisting the stresses – especially leaf diseases – to which the crop is susceptible. These genes can be transferred from the wild cousins to the cultivated crop by blending conventional and molecular breeding techniques. But that is easier said than done, because cultivated groundnuts can’t cross naturally with their wild relatives owing to chromosomic differences.

Groundnut flower

“In modern breeding, molecular markers can play a critical role,” says Vincent. “Using markers, one can know the locations of genes of interest from an agronomic perspective, and we can then transfer these genes from the wild relatives into the groundnut varieties preferred by farmers and their markets.”

Partnerships in and out of Africa, core capacities“Partners are key to this work,” says Vincent. The groundnut work is led by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), with collaborators in the target countries, which are Malawi (Chitedze Agricultural Research Centre), Senegal (Institut sénégalais de recherches agricoles ‒ ISRA) and Tanzania (Agricultural Research Institute, Naliendele), Moving forward together, continuous capacity building for partners in Africa is part and parcel of the project. To this end, there have been several training workshops in core areas such as molecular breeding and phenotyping, farmer field days in the context of participatory varietal selection, as well as longer-term training on more complex topics such as drought, in addition to equipping the partners with the critical infrastructure needed for effective phenotyping.

Freshly dug-up groundnuts.

Further afield out of Africa, Vincent’s team also collaborates with the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), France’s Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement ‒ CIRAD, and USA’s University of Georgia.

This ‘variegated’ partnership has been essential for unlocking the wild groundnut diversity when about 12 years ago the EMBRAPA team successfully generated a number of ‘synthetic’ groundnuts from their wild relatives. Unlike the wild groundnuts, these synthetic groundnuts can be crossed to the cultivated type, bringing with them treasure troves of beneficial genes pertaining to the wild that would be otherwise unreachable for the cultivated varieties. Taking this one step further, the CIRAD‒ISRA team, in a close North‒South partnership, has used one of the synthetics from the Brazilian programme to generate new genetic diversity in the groundnut cultivar Fleur11. They are using additional synthetics from ICRISAT to further enlarge this genetic diversity in cultivated groundnuts.

These techniques and tools provide signposts on the genome of varieties for characteristics of importance”

A world first for an ‘orphan’, goals achieved, and what nextAmong other goals, the team notably achieved a world first: “To produce the first SSR-based genetic linkage map for cultivated groundnuts!” declares Vincent. SSR stands for simple sequence repeat. The map was published in 2009, followed later on by a groundnut consensus map in 2012.

Youngster bearing fresh groundnuts along River Gambia in Senegal.

But what do these maps and their publication mean for groundnut production? Vincent explains: “These techniques and tools provide signposts on the genome of varieties for characteristics of importance ‒ for instance, resistance to a disease ‒ and these are used in combination to speed up the development of groundnut varieties that are more resistant to the stresses found in the harsh environments where most of the tropical world’s poor farmers live. Accelerating development means quicker delivery to farmers who are at high risk of going hungry. TLI Phase I produced synthetic groundnuts with new genes for disease resistance.”

In Phase II of the TLI Project which terminates in mid-2014, the team has continued to identify new genetic and genomic resources, for instance new sources of drought resistance from the germplasm and which are currently being used in the development of new breeding stocks. What is significant about this is that groundnuts ‒ like most other members of the legume family ‒ do not have much in the way of genomic and molecular-genetic resources, and are in fact consequently referred to in some circles as ‘orphans’ of the genome revolution. The focus has also been on resistance to rust, early and late leaf spot, and rosette – all economically critical diseases – by tapping the resilience of GBPD4, a cultivar resistant to rust and leaf spot, and introducing its dual resistance to fortify the most popular varieties against these diseases. The team also hopes to scale up these promising examples.

We believe this team is firmly on the way to fulfilling their two-fold project objectives which were: (1) to develop genomic resources and produce the first molecular-breeding products of the crop by injecting disease resistance (from TLI Phase I work) into farmer- and market-preferred varieties; and, (2) to lay the foundation for future marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS) breeding by tapping on newly identified sources of drought tolerance.

the genetic stocks that hold the most promise to overcome leaf disease are found in the wild relatives… A thorough reflection is needed to combine good genetics with sound agronomic management”

The futureBut the team is not resting on their laurels, as the work will not stop with the fulfillment of project objectives. In many ways, their achievements are in fact just the beginning. The new breeding stocks developed during TLI Phase II need to be evaluated further for their drought tolerance and disease resistance prior to their deployment in breeding programmes, and this activity ‒ among others ‒ is included for the next phase of the work in the proposed Tropical Legumes III project. In particular, the genetic stocks that hold the most promise to overcome leaf disease are found in the wild relatives. Thus, the existing materials need to be fully exploited and more need to be produced to cover the full breadth of potential stresses. Vincent adds “Of course an increasing part of the efforts will be about assuring quality evaluation data, meaning we must continue to significantly enhance the capacity ‒ both human and physical ‒ of our partners in target countries. Last but not least, the good wheat and rice cultivars that directly arose from the green revolution would have been nothing without nitrogen fertiliser and irrigation.” Vincent adds that the same applies to groundnuts: they are cultivated in infertile soil, at seeding rates that are unlikely to optimise productivity.

Groundnut drawing

For this reason, and others explained above, “A thorough reflection is needed to combine good genetics with sound agronomic management,” Vincent concludes, stressing the importance of what he terms as ‘looking beyond the fence’. Vincent’s parting shot, as our conversation draws to close: “In fact, I have grown increasingly convinced over the past year that we probably overlook those agronomic aspects in our genetic improvements at our peril, and we clearly need a re-think of how to better combine genetic improvement with the most suitable and farmer-acceptable agronomic management of the crop.”

Much food for thought there! And probably the beginnings of an animated conversation to which a groundnut crop model, on which Vincent and team are currently working, could soon yield some interesting answers on the most suitable genetic-by-management packages, and therefore guide the most adequate targets for crop improvement.

Our guest today is Jeff Ehlers (pictured), Programme Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Jeff’s an old friend of GCP, most familiar to the GCP community in his immediate past stomping grounds at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), USA, leading our research to improve cowpea production in the tropics, for which sunny California offers a perfect spot for effective phenotyping. Even then, Jeff was not new to CGIAR, as we’ll see from his career crossings. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves in narrating Jeff’s tale. First, what would high-end cowpea research have to do with crusading and catapults? Only Jeff can tell us, so please do read on!

The GCP model was a very important way of doing business for CGIAR and the broader development community, enabling partnerships between international research institutes, country programmes and CGIAR. This is particularly important as the possibilities of genomics-led breeding become even greater…If anything, we need to see more of this collaborative model.”

Growing green, sowing the seed, trading glory for grassrootsGrowing up in USA’s Golden State of California, green-fingered Jeff had a passion for cultivating the land rather than laboratory samples, harbouring keen ambitions to become a farmer. This did not change with the years as he transited from childhood to adolescence. The child grew into a youth who was an avid gardener: in his student days, Jeff threw his energy into creating a community garden project ‒ an initiative which promptly caught the eye of his high school counsellor, who suggested Jeff give the Plant Science Department at UCR a go for undergraduate studies.

And thus the seeds of a positively blooming career in crop research were sown. However, remaining true to the mission inspired by his former community-centred stomping grounds, a grassroots focus triumphed over glory-hunting for Jeff, who – no stranger to rolling his sleeves up and getting his fingers into the sod – found himself, when at the University of California, Davis, for his advanced studies, embarking on what was to become a lifelong undertaking, first at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and then at UCR, dedicated to a then under-invested plant species straggler threatening to fall by the research world’s wayside. With a plethora of potential genomic resources and modern breeding tools yet to be tapped into, Jeff’s cowpea crusade had begun in earnest…

GCP’s TLI was essential in opening that door and putting us on the path to increased capability – both for cowpea research enablement and human capacity”

Straggler no more: stardom beckons, and a place at the table for the ‘orphan’And waiting in the wings to help Jeff along his chosen path was the Generation Challenge Programme (GCP), which, in 2007, commissioned Jeff’s team to tackle the cowpea component of the flagship Tropical Legumes I (TLI) project, implemented by GCP under the Legumes Research Initiative. TLI is mainly funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The significance of this project, Jeff explains, was considerable: “The investment came at a very opportune time, and demonstrated great foresight on the part of both GCP and the Foundation.” Prior to this initiative, he further explains, “there had been no investment by anyone else to allow these orphan crops to participate in the feast of technologies and tools suddenly available and that other major crops were aggressively getting into. Before GCP and Gates funding for TLI came along, it was impossible to think about doing any kind of modern breeding in the orphan grain legume crops. GCP’s TLI was essential in opening that door and putting us on the path to increased capability – both for cowpea research enablement and human capacity.”

Flashback: UCR cowpea team in 2009. Left to right: Wellington Muchero, Ndeye Ndack Diop (familiar, right?!), Raymond Fenton, Jeff Ehlers, Philip Roberts and Timothy Close in a greenhouse on the UCR campus, with cowpeas in the background. Ndeye Ndack and Jeff seem to love upstaging each other. She came to UCR as a postdoc working under Jeff, then she moved to GCP, with oversight over the TLI project, thereby becoming Jeff’s boss, then he moved to the Foundation with oversight over TLI. So, what do you think might be our Ndeye Ndack’s next stop once GCP winds up in 2014? One can reasonably speculate….!

Of capacity building, genomics and ‘X-ray’ eyesThis capacity-building cornerstone – which, in the case of the TLI project, is mainly funded by the European Commission – is, says Jeff, a crucial key to unlocking the potential of plant science globally. “The next generation of crop scientists ‒ particularly breeders ‒ need to be educated in the area of genomics and genomics-led breeding.”

While stressing the need for robust conventional breeding efforts, Jeff continues: ”Genomics gives the breeder X-ray eyes into the breeding programme, bringing new insights and precision that were previously unavailable.”

In this regard, Jeff has played a leading role in supporting skill development and organising training for his team members and colleagues across sub-Saharan Africa, meaning that partners from Mozambique, Burkina Faso and Senegal, among others, are now, in Phase II of the TLI project, moving full steam ahead with marker-assisted and backcross legume breeding at national level, thanks to the genotyping platform and genetic fingerprints from Phase I of the project. The genotyping platform, which is now publicly available to anyone looking to undertake marker-assisted breeding for cowpeas, is being widely used by research teams not only in Africa but also in China. Thanks in part then to Jeff and his team, the wheels of the genomics revolution for cowpeas are well and truly in motion.

Undergoing the transition from phenotypic old-school plant breeder to modern breeder with all the skills required was a struggle…it was challenging to teach others the tools when I didn’t know them myself!…without GCP, I would not have been able to grow in this way.”

Talking about a revolution, comrades-in-arms, and a master mastering some moreBut as would be expected, the road to revolution has not always been entirely smooth. Reflecting on some of the challenges he encountered in the early TLI days, and highlighting the need to invest not only in new students, but also in upgrading the existing skills of older scientists, Jeff tells of a personal frustration that had him battling it out alongside the best of them: “Undergoing the transition from phenotypic old-school plant breeder to modern breeder with all the skills required was a struggle,” he confides, continuing: “It was challenging to teach others the tools when I didn’t know them myself!”

Thus, in collaboration with his cowpea comrades from the global North and South, Jeff braved the steep learning curve before him, and came out on the other side smiling – an accomplishment he is quick to credit to GCP: “It was a very interesting and fruitful experience, and without GCP, I would not have been able to grow in this way,” he reveals. Holding the collaborative efforts facilitated by the broad GCP network particularly dear, Jeff continues: “The GCP model was a very important way of doing business for CGIAR and the broader development community, enabling partnerships between international research institutes, country programmes and CGIAR. This is particularly important as the possibilities of genomics-led breeding become even greater…If anything, we need to see more of this collaborative model.”

GCP’s Integrated Breeding Platform addresses the lack of modern breeding skills in the breeding community as a whole, globally…The Platform provides extremely valuable and much-needed resources for many public peers around the world, especially in Africa…”

One initiative which has proved especially useful in giving researchers a leg up in the mastery of modern breeding tools, Jeff asserts, is GCP’s Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP): “IBP addresses the lack of modern breeding skills in the breeding community as a whole, globally. By providing training in the use of genomic tools that are becoming available, from electronic capture of data through to genotyping, phenotyping, and all the way to selective decision-making and analysis of results, IBP will play a critical role in helping folks to leverage on the genomics revolution that’s currently unfolding,” Jeff enthuses, expanding: “The Platform provides extremely valuable and much-needed resources for many public peers around the world, especially in Africa where such one-off tools that are available commercially would be otherwise out of reach.”

Conqueror caparisoned to catapult: life on the fast lane and aiming higherWell-versed in conquering the seemingly unobtainable, Jeff shares some pearls of wisdom for young budding crop scientists:”Be motivated by the mission, and the ideas and the science, and not by what’s easy, or by what brings you the most immediate gratification,” he advises, going on to explain: “Cowpeas have been through some really tough times. Yet, my partners and I stuck it out, remained dedicated and kept working.” And the proof of Jeff’s persistence is very much in the pudding, with his team at UCR having become widely acclaimed for their success in catapulting cowpeas into the fast lane of crop research.

It was a success that led him to the hallways of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where, after two decades at UCR, Jeff is currently broadening his legume love affair to also embrace beans, groundnuts, chickpeas, pigeonpeas and soya beans.

February 2014: Jeff donning his (now-not-so-)new Gates hat and on the road, visiting ICRISAT in India. Behind him is an ICRISAT experimental field of early-maturing pigeonpeas. Here, our conquering crusader is ‘helmeted’ in an ICRISAT cap, even if not horsed and caparisoned for this ‘peacetime’ pigeonpea mission!

On his future professional aspirations, he says: “The funding cut-backs for agriculture which started before 1990 or so gutted a lot of the capacity in the public sector, both in the national programmes in Africa but also beyond. I hope to play a role in rebuilding some of the capacity to ensure that people take full advantage of the technical resources available, and to enable breeding programmes to function at a higher level than they do now.”

Jeff (foreground) inspecting soya bean trials in Kakamega, Kenya, in January 2013. Next to Jeff is Emmanuel Monyo, the coordinator of the Tropical Legumes II (TLII) project – TLI’s twin – whose brief is seed multiplication. TLII is therefore responsible for translating research outputs from TLI into tangible products in the form of improved legume varieties.

Whilst it’s been several years since he donned his wellington boots for the gardening project of his youth, what’s clear in this closing statement is an unremitting and deeply ingrained sense of community spirit – albeit with a global outlook – and a fight for the greater good that remain at the core of Jeff’s professional philosophy today.

No doubt, our cowpea champion and his colleagues have come a long way, with foundations now firmly laid for modern breeding in the crop on a global scale, and – thanks to channels now being established to achieve the same for close relatives of the species – all signs indicate that the best is yet to come!

For this ‘IBP story-telling season’, our next stop is very fittingly Africa, and her most populous nation, Nigeria. Travel with us!

Having already heard the Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP) story on data from Arllet (spiced with a brief detour through Asia’s sun-splashed rice paddies), and on IBP’s Breeding Management System from Mark (where we perched on a corner on his Toulouse workbench of tools and data), we next set out to get an external narrative on IBP, and specifically, one from an IBP user. Well, we got more than we had bargained for from our African safari…

Yemi Olojede

Yemi Olojede (pictured) is much more than a standard IBP user. An agronomist by training with a couple of decades-plus experience, he not only works closely with breeders and other crop scientitsts, but is also a research coordinator and data manager. As you can imagine, this made for a rich and insightful conversation, ferrying us far beyond the frontiers of Yemi’s base in Nigeria, to the rest of West Africa, further out to Africa , and as far afield as Mexico, in his travels and travails with partners. We now bring to you some of this captivating conversation…

Yemi has been working for the last 23 years (since 1991) at Nigeria’s National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) at Umudike in various capacities. After heading NRCRI’s Minor Root Crops Programme for 13 years, he was last year appointed Coordinator-in-Charge of the Cassava Research Programme.

But his involvement in agriculture goes much further back than NRCRI: Yemi says he “was born into farming”. His father, to whom he credits his love for agriculture, was a cocoa farmer. “I enjoy seeing things grow. When I see a field of crops …what a view!” Yemi declares.

Yemi is also the Crop Database Manager for NRCRI’s GCP-funded projects. He spent time at GCP headquarters in Mexico in February 2012 to sharpen his skills and provide user insights to the IBP team on the cassava database, on the then nascent Integrated Breeding Fieldbook, and on the tablet that GCP was considering for electronic field data collection and management.

To meet the farmers’ growing need for improved higher-yielding and stress-tolerant varieties, plant breeders are starting to incorporate molecular-breeding techniques to speed up conventional breeding.

Flashback to 2010: GCP was then piloting and testing small handheld devices for data collection. Field staff going through a training session for these under Yemi’s watchful eye (right).

But for this to happen effectively, cassava breeders require consistent and precise means to collect and upload research and breeding data, and secure facilities to upload that data into the requisite databases and share it with their peers. Eighty percent of farmers in Africa have less than a hectare of land – that’s roughly two football fields! With so little space, they need high-value crops that consistently provide them with viable yields, particularly during drought. For this reason, an increasing number of Nigerian farmers are adopting cassava. It is not as profitable as, say, wheat, but it has the advantage of being less risky. The Nigerian government is encouraging this change and is implementing a Cassava Transformation Agenda, which will improve cassava markets and value chains locally and create a sustainable export market. All this is designed to encourage farmers to grow more cassava.

Enter GCP’s Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP), which has been working closely with NRCRI and other national breeding programmes to develop the right informatic tools and support services for the job. The International Cassava Information System (ICASS), the Integrated Breeding Fieldbook and the tablet are all part of the solution, backed up by a variety of bioinformatic tools for data management, data analysis and breeding decision support that have been developed to meet the specific needs of the users.

I enjoy working with the team. They pay attention to what we as breeders want and are determined to resolve the issues we raise”

Fastfoward to 2012: Based on feedback, a larger electronic tablet was favoured over the smaller handheld device. Yemi (centre) takes field staff through the paces in tablet use.

The database and IB Fieldbook“When I received the tablet I was excited! I had heard so much about it but only contributed ideas for its use through Skype and email,” Yemi remembers, echoing a sentiment that is frequently expressed by many partners who have been introduced to the device. “I experimented with the Integrated Breeding Fieldbook software focusing on pedigree management, trait ontology management, template design ‒ testing how easy it was to input data into the program and database.” Yemi noted a few problems with layout and data uploading and suggested a number of additional features. The IBP Team found these insights particularly useful and worked hard to implement them in time for the 2nd Scientific Conference of the Global Cassava Partnership for the 21st Century (GCP21 II), held in Kampala, Uganda, in June, 2012.

“I enjoy working with the team. They pay attention to what we as breeders want and are determined to resolve the issues we raise,” says Yemi. He believes the IB FieldBook and the tablet, on which it runs, will greatly benefit breeders all over the world, but particularly in Africa. “At the moment, our breeders and researchers have to write down their observations in a paper field book, take that book back to their computer, and enter the data into an Excel spreadsheet,” he notes. “We have to double-handle the data and this increases the possibility of mistakes, especially when we are transferring it to our computers. The IB Fieldbook will streamline this process, minimising the risk of making mistakes, as we enter our observations straight into the tablet, using specified terms and parameters, which will upload all the data to the shared central database when it’s connected to the internet.”

The whole room was wide-eyed and excited when they first saw the tablets”

Bringing the tablet to AfricaAfter his trip to Mexico, Yemi was concerned that some African breeders would be put off using the IB Fieldbook and accompanying electronic tablet because both require some experience with computers. “I found the tablet and the FieldBook quite easy to use because I’m relatively comfortable with computers,” says Yemi. “The program is very similar to MS-Excel, which many breeders are comfortable with, but I still thought it would be difficult to introduce it given that computer literacy across the continent is very uneven.”

Slim, elegant, portable and nearly invisible is this versatile tool. A junior scientist at NRCRI Umudike tries out the tablet during the 2012 training session.

At the GCP21 II meeting in Uganda, Yemi helped the IBP team run IB Fieldbook workshops for plant breeders from developing countries, with an emphasis on data quality and sharing. “The whole room was wide-eyed and excited when they first saw the tablets. They initially had trouble using them and I thought it was going to be a very difficult workshop, but by the end they all felt confident enough to use them by themselves and were sad to have to give them back!”

They … go back to their research institutes and train their colleagues, who are more likely to listen and learn from them than from someone else.”

Providing extra support, cultivating trustYemi recounts that attendees were particularly pleased when they received a step-by-step ‘how-to’ manual to help them train other breeders in their institutes, with additional support to be provided by the IBP or Yemi’s team in Nigeria. “They were worried about post-training support,” says Yemi. “We told them if they had any challenges, they could call us and we would help them. I feel this extra support is a good thing for the future of this project, as it will build confidence in the people we teach. They can then go back to their research institutes and train their colleagues, who are more likely to listen and learn from them than from someone else.”

In developing nations, it is important that we share data, because we don’t all have the capacity to carry out molecular breeding at this time, and data sharing would facilitate the dissemination of the benefits to a wider group”

Sharing data to utilise molecular breedingYemi asserts that incorporating elements of molecular breeding has helped NRCRI a great deal. With conventional breeding, it would take six to 10 years to develop a variety before release, but with integrated breeding (conventional breeding that incorporates molecular breeding elements) it is possible to develop and release new varieties in three to four years ‒ half the time. Farmers would hence be getting new varieties of cassava that will yield 20‒30 percent more than the lines they are currently using in a much shorter time.

“In developing nations, it is important that we share data, because we don’t all have the capacity to carry out molecular breeding at this time, and data sharing would facilitate the dissemination of the benefits to a wider group,” says Yemi. “I enjoy helping people with this technology because I know how much it will make their job easier.”

Mark the man in the middle, and of the markers…

Today, we talk to Mark Sawkins (pictured), the ‘middleware’ man in our Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP) so to speak, seeing as he is the human ‘interface’ between crop breeders on the one hand, and the developers of our Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP) on the other hand. Mark is the ‘bridge’ that connects IBP users and IBP developers – a special position which gives him a privileged and fascinating perspective on both sides of the coin, with a dash of public–private sector pragmatic partnership thrown in too. Here’s more on Mark, in this dispatch from and on his special perch on the bench…

Bridge to bench, abuzz on BMS: A ‘tinker’ at Toulouse…Mark Sawkins is always busy tinkering away on his Workbench at his base in Toulouse in southern France. It’s not your traditional wooden workbench, covered in sawdust, soil or splattering of paint. Nor is it one carpeted in documents lit by the warm glow of a computer monitor. In fact, the workbench Mark is working on is virtual, having no physical form and residing solely online, or on a user’s computer, once downloaded.

Known as the Breeding Management System (BMS) the Workbench, comprising software tools linked to a database for access to pedigree, phenotypic and genotypic data, has been developed by GCP’s Integrated Breeding Platform. The BMS has what a crop breeder would require to conduct an analysis of phenotypic and genotypic data generated as part of a crop-breeding or evaluation experiment, covering a broad spectrum of needs from conventional breeding to advanced molecular breeding applications. Version 2 of the Breeding Management System was released just last month.

… it [BMS] will be of most help to breeders both in the public and private sector in Africa and Asia who, up to now, have had little or no access to tools and data to allow them to shift gears in their breeding programme…The BMS has a lot of tools and all the foundational data necessary for a breeder’s routine day-to-day activities…The BMS is also anticipated to have enormous positive impact on food security in developing countries in the years ahead, enabling crop breeders to evaluate their progenies using the most sophisticated statistical methods available”

A hands-on BMS orientation workshop underway for breeders in Africa, held in Ethiopia in July 2013 under the auspices of the GCP-funded cassava breeding community of practice. Standing, Yemi Olojode, of Nigeria’s National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), Umidike, who was one of the trainers.

Previously known as the Integrated Breeding Workflow System (IBWS), the BMS incorporates both statistical analysis tools and decision-support tools. The tools are assembled in a way that data can flow seamlessly from one application to the next in tandem with the various stages of the crop-breeding process. It allows the breeder to accurately collect, securely store and efficiently analyse and synthesise their data on a local private database, and also share, or compare, their data with other breeders via a central public crop database.

“The BMS has a lot of tools and all the foundational data necessary for a breeder’s routine day-to-day activities,” explains Mark, a plant geneticist who joined IBP in 2011. “Any breeder can use it, but it will be of most help to breeders both in the public and private sector in Africa and Asia who, up to now, have had little or no access to tools and data to allow them to shift gears in their breeding programme, particularly in adopting modern breeding practices, including the use of molecular markers.”

The BMS is also anticipated to have enormous positive impact on food security in developing countries in the years ahead, enabling crop breeders to evaluate their progenies using the most sophisticated statistical methods available, and make selections on which lines to advance to the next phase of development in the progression towards more productive and resilient crop varieties.

Phenotyping and field trials are becoming the most expensive part of the breeding process… The biggest hurdle in the public sector in the past was the massive investment required to set up genotyping laboratory facilities… outsourcing, we believe, will help convince breeders to consider integrating molecular techniques into their breeding programmes”

Why integrated breeding?
For almost 30 years, the private sector has been implementing molecular-breeding approaches in developing more productive and resilient crops. These approaches allow breeders to select for plant characteristics (traits) early in the breeding process and then test whether a plant has the targeted trait, which they cannot visually identify.

“Phenotyping and field trials are becoming the most expensive part of the breeding process,” says Mark. “Using molecular markers is a way to reduce the investment in that process. By using markers, early in the development of a given crop line, you can reduce the number of plants you need to grow and test, reducing the time and cost associated with field trials.”

Mark hopes that the Workbench will in time enable breeders, in under-resourced public breeding institutes to access some of the leading molecular-marker databases, and make use of the markers therein for the desired traits they are breeding for, along with technical support from molecular breeders to guide them in making their breeding decisions.

“The biggest hurdle in the public sector in the past was the massive investment required to set up genotyping laboratory facilities,” explains Mark “but now there are plenty of professional service providers that people can send their samples to and get back good results at a very reasonable cost. This time- and cost-saving reality of outsourcing, we believe, will help convince breeders to consider integrating molecular techniques into their breeding programmes.”

We are currently conducting a three-year course to train scientists from national programmes in West and Central Africa, East and Southern Africa and South and Southeast Asia, who we hope will promote and support the adoption of modern breeding in their institutes and countries.”

An Integrated Breeding Multiyear Course (IB-MYC) training course in session in April 2013 for the West and Central Africa group. Clarissa Pimentel, IBP’s Data Manager/Training Specialist, at the front, giving trainees tricks and tips on using FieldLab on the electronic tablet for field data collection.

Running with championsMark knows that giving breeders the tools and means to integrate molecular breeding into their programmes is one thing. To actually have them adopt them is another. But he has a plan.

In keeping with the core mission of GCP, which is to build sustainable capacity in developing-country breeding programmes, Mark proposes to recruit and train selected breeders in molecular-breeding techniques and set them up as champions and advocates for their particular crop or region.

Marker implementation methods can be varied but the tools required need to help the breeder make a quick informed decision on what to take forward to the next generation: What plants need to be crossed? Which plants should be kept and which ones discarded? The decision-support tools provided by the IB Workbench will help the breeder make these decisions.

“We are currently conducting a three-year course to train scientists from national programmes in West and Central Africa, East and Southern Africa and South and Southeast Asia, who we hope will promote and support the adoption of modern breeding in their institutes and countries,” Mark enthusiastically explains. The three-year training programme is known as the Integrated Breeding Multiyear Course (IB–MYC). Mark continues, “We believe that people will be more willing to listen to someone who is right there on the ground, whom they know and trust and can easily get in contact with if they need help.”

While the champions concept is still in its infancy, Mark believes it has real merit but must overcome two major barriers – time and confidence. “Identifying the champions won’t be hard,” he observes, “What will be hard is getting them to add this extra task to their already busy agenda. It will require buy-in from management at the institutional level to enable the champions to carry out their mission. It will also be individually hard for each champion, who will only be successful when they have the confidence in their own integrated breeding and extension skills. This confidence would be the thing that would really help sell the message.”

Engaging the private sector
Mark oversees the design, testing and deployment of the system that underpins the BMS, ensuring that both the system and the tools embedded in it are easy to use and meet the needs and expectations of the breeders. However, he and his team have had some trouble getting feedback on the system from the breeders it is intended for, due to their inexperience with such tools and systems. That is why he has called on his private-sector contacts, developed when he was at Syngenta where he worked for five years prior to his current assignment.

“We hope to show them what we’ve been doing in IBP with the Workbench, and hopefully get some private-sector buy-in and see how they can help us – not in developing tools, but with feedback on functionality and usability of the tools we are developing,” he explains. “We don’t have a core set of breeders who are routinely using markers in their breeding programme amongst the partners we are working with on the IBP project. So we are tapping into the private sector which has teams of molecular breeders who are more familiar with the types of breeding workflows and tools we are developing. We’re hoping that we can take advantage of their knowledge and experience to get some really useful feedback, which we will use to improve the usability and effectiveness of our tools.”

To maximise adoption and use, GCP has been actively engaged in extensive capacity building, and this will be reinforced with a comprehensive awareness-creation and communication effort immediately before and after a projected mid-year release of a newer BMS version incorporating the all-essential user feedback. The impact of the analytical pipeline in developing countries will be particularly enhanced with the availability of efficient user support services, which Mark will be overseeing.

BREAK-TIME AND BRAKE-TIME from beans for a bit: Steve Beebe takes a pause to strike a pose in a bean field.

“These [molecular breeding] techniques, combined with conventional methods, shorten the time it takes to breed improved varieties that simultaneoulsy combine several traits.

And this means that we also get them out to farmers more quickly compared to phenotypic selection alone.”– Steve Beebe

THE NEAR-PERFECT FOOD: Common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L) comprise the world’s most important food legume, feeding about 200 million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone. Their nutritional value is so high, they have been termed ‘a near-perfect food’. They are also easy to grow, adapting readily to different cropping systems and maturing quickly.

That said, this otherwise versatile, adaptable and dapper dicotyledon does have some inherent drawbacks and ailments that crop science seeks to cure….

Rains are rapidly retreating, and drought doggedly advancingDespite the crop’s widespread cultivation in Africa, “yields are low, stagnating at between 20 and 30 percent of their potential,” remarks Steve Beebe, GCP’s Product Delivery Coordinator for beans, and a researcher at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT, by its Spanish acronym).

“The main problem is drought, brought about by climate change,” he says. “And it’s spreading – it already affects 70 percent of Africa’s major bean-producing regions.” Drought decimates bean harvests in most of Eastern Africa, but is particularly severe in the mid-altitudes of Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Zimbabwe, as well as in southern Africa as a whole.

A myriad of forms and hues: bean diversity eloquently speaks for itself in this riot of colours.

Drought, doubt and duality − Diversity a double-edged sword“Common beans can tolerate drought to some extent, using various mechanisms that differ from variety to variety,” explains Steve. But breeding for drought resistance is complicated by the thousands of bean varieties that are available. They differ considerably according to growth habit, seed colour, shape, size and cooking qualities, and cultivation characteristics.

“A variety might be fantastic in resisting drought,” says Steve, ‘but if its plant type demands extra work, the farmers won’t grow it,” he explains. “Likewise, if consumers don’t like the seed colour, or the beans take too long to cook, then they won’t buy.”

Molecular breeding deals a hand, waves a wand, and weaves a bandThis is where molecular breeding techniques come in handy, deftly dealing with the complexities of breeding drought-resistant beans that also meet farmer and consumer preferences. No guesswork about it: molecular breeding rapidly and precisely gets to the heart of the matter, and helps weave all these different ‘strands’ together.

The bean research team has developed ‘genetic stocks’, or strains of beans that are crossed with the varieties favoured by farmers and consumers. The ‘crosses’ are made so that the gene or genes with the desired trait are incorporated into the preferred varieties.

The resulting new varieties are then evaluated for their performance in different environments throughout eastern and southern Africa, with particular focus on Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe which are the target countries of the Tropical Legumes I (TLI) project.

Propping up the plant protein: a veritable tapestry of terraces of climbing beans.

GCP supported this foundation work to develop these molecular markers. This type of breeding – known in breeder parlance as marker-assisted selection (MAS) – was also successfully used to combine and aggregate resistance to drought; to pests such as bean stem maggot (BSM); and to diseases such as bean common mosaic necrosis potyvirus (BCNMV) and to bruchid or common bacterial blight (CBB). The resulting ‘combinations’ laden with all this good stuff were then bred into commercial-type bean lines.

“These techniques, combined with conventional methods, shorten the time it takes to breed improved varieties that simultaneoulsy combine several traits,” comments Steve. “This means that we also get them out to farmers more quickly compared to phenotypic selection alone.”

Informed by history and realityBreeding new useful varieties is greatly aided by first understanding the crop’s genetic diversity, and by always staying connected with the reality on the ground: earlier foundation work facilitated by GCP surfaced the diversity in the bean varieties that farmers grow, and how that diversity could then be broadened with genes to resist drought, pests and disease.

What next?Over the remaining two years of Phase II of the Tropical Legumes I (TLI) project, the bean team will use the genetic tools and breeding populations to incorporate drought tolerance into farmer- and market-preferred varieties. “Hence, productivity levels on smallholder farms are expected to increase significantly,” says Steve.

PartnershipsThe work on beans is led by CIAT, working in partnership with Ethiopia’s South Agricultural Research Institute (SARI), the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), Malawi’s Department of Agricultural Research and Technical Services (DARTS) and Zimbabwe’s Crop Breeding Institute (CBI) of the Department of Research and Specialist Services (DR&SS).

Other close collaborators include the eastern, central and southern Africa regional bean research networks (ECABREN and SABRN, their acronyms) which are components of the Pan-African Bean Research Alliance (PABRA). Cornell University (USA) is also involved.

VIDEO: Steve talks about what has been achieved so far in bean research, and what remains to be done

SDC and GCP

Today, we catch up with SDC’s Carmen Thönnissen (pictured). She walks us through the whys of Switzerland’s continued funding to GCP that has spanned nearly the Programme’s entire lifetime.

We were …drawn to GCP’s upstream–downstream connections, and its pre-conceived product delivery path. GCP produces global public goods, with a clear focus on strategic research for development, while also addressing important upstream research elements in crop science such as gene discovery and marker validation. In addition, GCP already had a Product Delivery Strategy to guarantee downstream application.

The way GCP uses and ‘bundles’ resources within and beyond CGIAR, then as now, is attractive to us as a meaningful approach, promising good value for money.”

GCP’s work is very results-oriented and pragmatic, forging partnerships followed by concrete actions to address bottlenecks in research for development in molecular crop breeding, without ruling out conventional breeding.

Carmen Thönnissen is Senior Advisor, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Corporate Domain Global Cooperation of the Global Programme for Food Security. Through the years, SDC has been a consistent GCP funder. Today, Carmen gives us some insights into this longstanding relationship.

Tell us briefly about SDC and its funding to GCP
SDC is the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, affiliated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Swiss Government.

We’ve funded GCP since 2006 with an annual contribution of 450,000 Swiss francs – a total of 1.9 million so far.

Why does SDC support GCP?
We share a long history with GCP, going as far back as the Programme’s ‘pre-birth’.

Starting in 2001, CGIAR adopted a more programmatic systemwide approach and endorsed the concept of Challenge Programmes. Between 2002 and 2005, SDC actively supported this process and the emerging Challenge Programmes.

In 2005, SDC reviewed its support to CGIAR and identified SDC priority regions, research priorities, and guiding principles for its unrestricted funding to the CGIAR system.

From this review, SDC decided to invest 30 percent of its core unrestricted funds to several CGIAR Systemwide and Challenge Programmes, one being GCP.

The Challenge Programmes were perceived as results-oriented, poverty-relevant and responsive to the CGIAR reform process of that time. They were also partnership-oriented, with transparent communication strategies.

Several points convinced SDC to invest in GCP, and I’ll mention just some of these. One was GCP’s focus on crops in marginal areas and on drought tolerance in sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. These overlap with SDC’s own thematic and geographical priorities.

We were also drawn to GCP’s upstream–downstream connections, and its pre-conceived product delivery path. GCP produces global public goods, with a clear focus on strategic research for development, while also addressing important upstream research elements in crop science such as gene discovery and marker validation. In addition, GCP already had a Product Delivery Strategy to guarantee downstream application.

The way GCP uses and ‘bundles’ resources within and beyond CGIAR, then as now, is attractive to us as a meaningful approach, promising good value for money. Back then, SDC was interested in the exploration of plant diversity and the application of advanced genomics and comparative biology to advance breeding of the main staple crops grown by resource-poor farmers, which was the very objective of GCP.

Our funds were intended to be used to increase the exploratory implementation of new research tools in applied breeding programmes to produce improved drought-tolerant crop varieties.

We also found the ‘suite approach’ proposed by GCP attractive, since at that time, very little was being done in these fields by CGIAR. We were drawn to the mix of a research component – on the impact of modern and integrated breeding approaches on productivity in developing countries, plus a service component aiming to disseminate knowledge, resources and technology, alongside lab services and capacity building.

GCP’s work is very results-oriented and pragmatic, forging partnerships followed by concrete actions to address bottlenecks in research for development in molecular crop breeding, without ruling out conventional breeding.

You mentioned common SDC–GCP thematic and geographic scope. Are there other areas where the missions of SDC and GCP overlap?
SDC has a focus on genetic resource improvement, and also supported the CGIAR Systemwide Programme on Genetic Resources, as well as the Global Crop Diversity Trust.

Supporting GCP is in line with SDC’s internal guidelines on Green Biotechnology. Among other things, we avoid single-donor initiatives, instead working within larger programmes that not only have a clear focus but also aim to strengthen developing-country capacity.

GCP’s work is very results-oriented and pragmatic. GCP plays a strong facilitating role in forging partnerships, which is followed by concrete actions, services, tools, methods, and so on, to address the bottlenecks identified by the research-for-development network with the aim of supporting molecular crop breeding for various crops, regions and partners, without ruling out conventional breeding.

SDC shares the view that Green Biotechnology, including genetic modification, can never fully replace conventional breeding, but it can be an important tool in improving plant-breeding programmes.

What outcomes are you expecting from this support?
To mention just a few, improved accessibility to modern breeding tools, methods and approaches for the developing world, plus enhanced capacity for developing-world partners on using these tools, as well as them knowing their rights and obligations regarding access to, and use of, plant genetic resources and related tools.

We also hope to see improved services for breeders, including learning materials and information on new resources for crop breeding. The long-term outcome we’d like to see is improved crop varieties, more resistant to abiotic and biotic stresses.

What are some of the lessons learnt from investing in GCP?
The importance of a strong programmatic orientation and the role of an honest broker in effective partnerships: GCP plays the role of enabler and facilitator, while its research partners are the actors.

Investing in GCP enables us to project a clear flow from upstream to applied research – with capacity building included – in the critical areas of food security and climate change.

The GCP community, its labours and joys

If tools and resources are not put to use, then we labour in vain...GCP contributes to food security by providing breeders with integrated tools, techniques and services to speed up the selection cycle, be this by conventional or molecular breeding. GCP focuses on developing new materials and new techniques and delivering these, and the appropriate breeding tools, technologies and services, to breeders. I think GCP has been one of the most successful builders of research and development partnerships.

The Board’s focus is now on auditing the Programme, and mapping a strategy to sustain its successful partnerships and systems, so that these can continue to deliver products and capacity to the developing world.”

Seatbelts on please! Time to take a tour with Andrew, for an ‘aerial’ view of GCP from the very ‘top’.

Please meet Andrew Bennett (pictured), the Chair of GCP’s Executive Board. Among other responsibilities, he is also President of the Tropical Agricultural Association, UK, chairs the SciDev.Net Board, and previously chaired the CIFOR Board. He was formerly Executive Director of the Syngenta Foundation and Director of Rural Livelihoods and Environment at the Department for International Development (DFID, UK) where he was responsible for professional advice on policy and programmes on livelihoods, natural resources, environment, sustainable development and research. Andrew has worked on development programmes in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Pacific and the Caribbean.

Today, Andrew shares his perspectives on GCP’s work, its impact, the challenges, the community GCP has built, and the role of the Board. Please read on…

When was the GCP Board established, and what is its profile and role?
The Board was set up in mid-2008 towards the end of the first phase of the Programme. A review recommended that there be a fully independent Board, comprising people who had no conflict of interest with the Programme to facilitate decision-making.

Board members have between them a wide variety of skills and backgrounds, ranging from expertise in molecular biology to development assistance, socioeconomics, academia, finance, governance and change management.

We are committed to the role that can be played by science in development, and to the Programme. We have offered advice and helped the Programme’s Consortium Committee and management refocus the Programme. By all accounts, they seem happy with how things have evolved.

Because GCP is hosted by CIMMYT, the Board does not have to deal with any policy issues. That is the responsibility of the Consortium Committee. Our role is more to provide advice and to help with decision-making and implementation, which is great as we’ve been able to focus on the Programme’s science and people.

How long have you been involved with GCP?
Since the Board was established in 2008.

What does the GCP tagline – ‘Partnerships in modern crop breeding for food security’ – mean for you?It means that all our undertakings are geared towards producing crop varieties that are tolerant to a range of environments, as well as being socially acceptable and appealing to farmers and markets.

How do you upgrade the planting material farmers have by fortifying it to combat the biotic and abiotic stresses? Half the challenge is breeding and selecting good material, and the other half is ensuring delivery of tools to breeders and new planting materials to farmers.

So GCP focuses on developing new materials and new techniques and delivering these, and the appropriate breeding tools, technologies and services, to breeders.

Why is GCP’s work important, and what does it mean for food security?
People who are food-secure have access to adequate food at all times to maintain healthy active lives. There are two sides to making this happen – access and availability.

GCP is increasing the number of varieties and lines tolerant to the conditions farmers are facing. What we cannot do is put money in the hands of poor people. If we supply people with the means to produce sustainable and healthy crops, they will have the means to produce food for themselves, and a means of making an income.

GCP contributes to food security by providing breeders with integrated tools, techniques and services to speed up the selection cycle, be this by conventional or molecular breeding.

For you, what have been the major outcomes of GCP so far?
GCP has shown that it is possible to form very productive partnerships across CGIAR institutes and advanced research establishments and those countries that have less scientific capacity. I think it has been one of the most successful builders of research and development partnerships. GCP has also shown public researchers can work very well with the private sector. The public sector has the means to build a lot of capacity.

I think GCP has demonstrated that it is possible to establish molecular breeding programmes in those parts of the world that do not have well-developed scientific infrastructure.

Just a little bit of money – relatively speaking of course – clear vision, and good leadership, can go very far, and produce tremendous benefits and progress.

GCP has also identified the constraints that we have to work within – the challenge of phenotyping and restrictions on the movement of genetic material to other parts of the world. GCP has paid particular attention to intellectual property [IP] because the information and materials GCP produces must remain in the public domain. IP in the international arena within which the Programme operates must span potentially conflicting national legislation regimes. It is a very complex area.

‘Challenge’ is in GCP’s name. What are the major challenges that the Programme has so far overcome?
Quite a number and more could be on the horizon. GCP has overcome some of these challenges. They include the problem of poor-quality phenotyping. This has been addressed through a comprehensive capacity-building programme, including laboratory and field infrastructure, and the training of research support staff in the developing-country field sites where GCP projects are being implemented.

Another challenge was focusing the Programme. At the start, the Programme was spread too thin, spanning too many crops and partners, but these have been progressively narrowed down in Phase II.

This narrowing is no mean feat in the public sector. In the private sector, you start with, say, a hundred projects, then after six months you halve them. After a year, you are down to 10 projects and you put all your resources into making those 10 ‘winners’ work. In the public sector, you keep the entire hundred going for three years, then you look for funding to keep them all running for another cycle. It’s a different culture: the private sector is product-oriented, while some aspects of the public sector emphasise contributing to the growth of knowledge and information, and to building or maintaining relationships, without necessarily asking about their usefulness and benefits to society.

The Board’s focus is now on auditing the Programme and mapping a strategy to sustain its successful partnerships and systems, so that these can continue to deliver products and capacity to the developing world.”

What are the future challenges that the Programme must overcome to remain sustainable?
There are many GCP activities that can be integrated into the new CGIAR Research Programmes. However, there may be other activities such as capacity building and IP management which – at this point in time – appear somewhat less easy to integrate into the new CGIAR Research Programmes.

There is also a danger – not unique to GCP but with all aid-assisted programmes – that when the money ends, everything will disappear into the archives. We have to make sure that doesn’t happen in this instance.

The Board’s focus is now on auditing the Programme and mapping a strategy to sustain its successful partnerships and systems, so that these can continue to deliver products and capacity to the developing world.

What are some of the lessons learnt so far?
GCP was born at a time when we thought molecular biology could solve all our problems quickly and efficiently. What I think we are finding is that molecular tools –while extremely useful – cannot entirely replace understanding the agronomy and phenotypic activities. Molecular biology alone is not a panacea or silver bullet for crop breeding; but it is a valuable tool.

Then there is capacity building: molecular breeding is a tool that you can only use if you have the capacity. Many parts of the world will require a lot of capacity building and support to be able to use the tools. GCP and its Integrated Breeding Platform can make a modest contribution to meeting this need through the proof-of-concept GCP Research Initiatives for selected crops and countries and establishing communities of practice.

If tools and resources are not put to use, then we labour in vain.

What has been the most enjoyable aspect of your position with GCP?
Without a doubt, attending the General Research Meetings has been the most enjoyable, meeting scientists from a wide range of institutes, backgrounds and countries.

These scientists come together because they share the same interests and a common goal. There’s a lively buzz of conversation. It is good to hear about what they are doing, what their aspirations are, and to learn from the knowledge and posters they bring to the meeting.

You don’t have to be a cutting-edge scientist to listen to these people whose enthusiasm is palpable. They are passionate, have a strong sense of community, enjoy what they are doing, and are just as keen to share this knowledge and enthusiasm. It’s all highly infectious!